Relief
by MouseyL
Summary: Tension hangs in the air during night time surveillance, and there are hours until morning.
1. Chapter 1

The rain is drumming delicately against the roof of the car, smearing down the windscreen in rivulets and twisting the view to the outside. The windows keep steaming up as though they are engaged in sordid acts of lust, but the truth of the matter is they're simply cold and bored. The mist and dripping rain are not enough to prevent their field of vision to the apartment building across the street, and she knows from glancing at her watch that there has been no movement for one hour and 37 minutes.

It's nearly 2.30am, they've been here since 10pm, the coffee has long since worn off, a night time chill is settling into their bones and they've been growling at each other for approximately 48 hrs. The man they're watching has been turned in by his soon-to-be ex-wife, and they're not sure who to believe. The claim is that he hosts 'picture parties' at his apartment in the darkest depths of the night, men arrive with girls and don't leave for hours. But they have no complaining witness other than the ex, no evidence other than her word, no time or date for the next 'meeting' and his ten year old daughter avoids the questions and claims he's innocent.

Having watched this guy for two days, tensions had started to bristle due to lack of sleep and the frustration born of getting absolutely nowhere. Olivia had almost thrown a mug at him that morning when he had made a smartass remark about the dark shadows under her eyes and her ability to stay up for yet another night, and she is damned if she's going to let him see that she is tired now.

Instead, she's running on nervous energy born of travelling to the point so far past tiredness that her body doesn't know what to do or feel. Her legs keep jumping and her hand plays with strands of hair before pushing them behind her ear and picking at threads on the seams of her jeans.

Elliot is staring out of the window, muscles and joints almost locked with edginess and he hasn't moved except to reach out and wipe the condensation produced by their breath from the inside of the glass. Her jumpiness is flickering in the corner of his eye, irritating him no end, and it's all he can do not to snap at her as every minute toils by with excruciating listlessness.

Abruptly, Olivia sneezes, and the noise within the leaden air makes him jump, his muscles tensing even more and causing his arm to knock a forgotten take-out coffee flying from where it was perched between them, the remnants of lukewarm, bitter liquid spilling immediately onto her thigh.

"Fuck!"

"Jesus El!"

It's the first thing either of them have said for what feels like an age, and Elliot immediately grabs a discarded napkin from the dashboard and presses it to the damp, spreading stain on her leg. She pushes the cup onto the floor, and pulls tissues out of her pocket, wiping the jeans herself and pushing his hand away almost violently.

"Just leave it." Her tone stings, and he throws the napkin back on the dash.

"Shit." The muttered expletive appears under his breath but is undoubtedly loud enough to be heard by his still grousing partner and she shoots him a look of utter disdain. Abandoning her attempts to clean herself up, she sighs and shifts in her seat, glancing across the empty street at the apartment block where nothing has happened.

His exasperation is clearly fizzling under the surface but he's back to his imitation of a stone statue and she drums her fingers against the door, not even realising that her now moist leg is tapping again. She's angry and frustrated, and the car seems far too small all of a sudden, Elliot's irritation radiating towards her and sucking her in without her permission, with no escape in sight. The air surrounding them is sodden with the damp of rain and the remnants of warmth from their breath, and despite the cold it feels heavy and humid.

Suddenly, Elliot's hand lands on the darkened patch of her thigh and he looks over to her.

"Stop it." His voice is gruff but soft, and stills her movement before the words can achieve coherence in her mind. For a second she is startled and embarrassed by her body's instinctive reaction to his command but then she relaxes slightly and looks back at him, their eyes meeting. He squeezes her leg, still tense beneath his fingers, and glances down at the stain. "If you carry on jiggling like that, I might have to spill another cup over you."

Olivia smiles and lets the breath she has been holding out, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes for a second. They've been stuck in this car for too long, her muscles in her back and shoulders are seizing up and she wants to go home to bed. Her thoughts begin to wander before a realisation hits her.

Elliot's hand is still on her thigh.

Opening her eyes without moving, she looks discreetly towards him but his attention appears to be back on the surveillance. However, there is a rigidity to his jaw that belies the more relaxed appearance his body has taken on since his last comment, and she stares at him for a couple of seconds, wondering if she's dreaming.

He can feel her eyes on his face, but he doesn't dare react. Her thigh is firm and taut beneath his palm, the sodden coffee stain warming with the heat of his hand. His fingers have splayed after they contracted, and when he focuses the entirety of his senses onto them, he realises that his little finger is far too high on her thigh, centimetres away from brushing the join of her legs.

The only action he wants to take is to slide his hand upwards and press into her warmth, to feel the heat kindle under his fingers, igniting him. He feels his cock stir in response to his thoughts, and now he thinks she must be aware of the desire streaking through his blood.

It's smouldering, feeding on the tension triggered by frustration and bubbling rage. Rage that he has had eight hours sleep in four days; that he hasn't seen a life outside work since this case started; that they can't catch a break with this perp and be done already. But he cannot move, fearful of breaking the moment that allows him to touch her, to transform that bitter anger into a burgeoning lust that seems more bearable than the ongoing helplessness of their lives.

His palm is burning into her flesh, his fervent intensity transmitting through the cloth and into her skin, and she knows what this feeling is. She's had it before, an uncomfortable urge where her body doesn't know how to react any more and she is reduced to her fingers pressing hard and fast, working the trapped feelings out of the depths and letting them escape from her in her climax.

Now she wants nothing more than to be in her bed, releasing the tension quickly to allow herself to sleep, but she's not, and they have several hours of surveillance and concentration left before the day breaks. Not that they can see anything, it's still raining and Elliot hasn't moved to wipe the windows. The atmosphere is so charged she can hardly breathe, and suddenly she's sick of this, of having to diffuse their chemistry with punch bags and arguments.

Reaching down, she lies her hand over his and shifts it, widening her legs and pushing his fingers against her core. The sensation is agonising, her nerves on fire, and she presses harder. Neither of them look at the other but Elliot can feel his erection rising in response to her action, and he gladly rubs his hand between her legs, the tepid coffee against his skin nothing in comparison to the moisture he images he can feel.

Still without looking at her, he lifts his hand and traces the seam upwards towards her stomach, creeping under the hem of her top and brushing against the bare skin he finds there. She has dropped her hand away now and they rest on the seat, one either side of her legs.

Elliot risks a glance under hooded eyelids and sees her eyes are closed, her head tipped backwards and her lips ever so faintly open and slick, as though she has just licked them. He directs his stare forwards again and acts by touch alone, carefully undoing the button of her jeans and running a finger gently underneath and into the waist of her underwear. It's all he can do not to come in his pants at the feeling of her, faint traces of sweat already under his fingertips and coating her skin.

He find a path downwards, velvet merging into warm wetness as his fingers brush her clitoris and progress further, before he hears her breath hitch faintly and stops. Looking over at her, he's overwhelmed to see that she is staring at him, lust and want creating a sheen across her eyes, and he wants to drown in her.

Pressing his forefinger hard against her, he elicits a gasp from her, and does so again, a second finger joining the first. Her hands are clutching the seat now, her knuckles tight and white, but all she is aware of is the waves of fire flooding her blood and the dark, possessive desire she sees within his eyes.

He shifts his hand, creeping towards her core and allowing his middle finger to slip into her depths, a breath coming from him at the exquisite sensation of her surrounding his flesh, a feeling he has dreamed of so many times. As he entered her, her eyes half shut before opening again and remaining locked with his, and a second finger joins the first, the coarseness of her jeans and panties brushing against the back of his hand and keeping him trapped against her flesh. He begins to move, and she cannot stop her arm rising and cupping his face, bristly skin prickling against the palm of her hand.

His thumb teeters over her clitoris, hardly touching it at all, and she finds herself pressing her hand harder against his face, as if this will produce the desired result, her thumb stroking his cheek gently and her eyes burning into his.

The fingers are still moving, twisting and flicking within her as well as moving in and out, and her breath is becoming more ragged with want. But still he tortures her, skirting round and round her aching clitoris until a groan escapes.

"El....."

She's hardly aware that she has uttered his name, but it sears through him and he can feel his erection twitch at it, growing harder than he thought possible considering that she hasn't even touched him. To see her open before him, exposed and laid bare with emotion, is the stuff of fantasies, and he wants to hold this image forever but her eyes are ablaze with longing.

Finally he relents, and presses his thumb against her, biting down softly into the pad of her palm as he does so. Her hips lift from the seat to meet the pressure, her back arching and her body shaking as she comes with a low moan that vibrates up his arm and into his body, pooling in his heart and groin, pushing the breath from his body as hers escapes too.

His hand stays still when she sinks back in her seat, and their eyes are still locked, delving deep into one another and watching as the tension visibly fades from them both. He hasn't had a release and his erection is still throbbing, but there is a warm sensation of contentment radiating within him.

Her eyes have calmed and a languid serenity resides there as she smiles softly at him, her hand still on his face. Moving his head, he kisses the palm where moments before he had bitten in lust, but he resists the urge to taste her skin with his tongue.

Pulling his hand out, he doesn't bother to button her jeans but instead allows himself the luxury of touching the skin above her waistband for a second before placing his hand back on her thigh, where it started, and squeezing tenderly.

Olivia rubs her thumb across his lips before she too drops her hand, but rather than putting it back on the seat, she lies it over his, intertwining her fingers with his, the faint residue of moisture from his lips combining with that of her core.

Finally they break their gazes from each other, and Elliot reaches out to wipe the condensation from the windows. Silence subsides around them again, and the rain is still drumming faintly on the roof of the car. There are hours until morning, but the night doesn't feel so heavy any more.


	2. Chapter 2

It's two days later and the case is closed, another perp behind bars. Just as the sated glow had began to fade from Olivia's body and Elliot's forceful erection started to come back under control, they had seen men and children begin entering the building they had watching.

The following two days were a never ending stream of interrogations, interviews, ridiculously annoying chases after suspects, and the struggles and benefits of working with Queens SVU when they match their paedophile ring with another one the other squad had been trying to break. 

Finally, everyone is locked up where they should be, and the squad - minus Fin who has heroically elected to stay behind and hold the fort, have descended on a bar with the Queen's detectives. Even Cragen has graced them with his presence. Everything has fallen into place but them.

Now Elliot is sitting with Olivia across from him at the decadently early hour of 4pm, and he cannot help but watch her. She's been so close to him throughout the forty-eight hours following her release, and every time he has felt her body near his, sensed her muscles tense to run or fight, been aware of her adrenaline rising, a faint remembrance had reflected across his skin as she moved.

In the interrogation room, as the grilling became heated, he had been able to feel her scent touch his skin. It wasn't flowering, or sweet, but earthy and heavy, the smell of the damp car and his fingers, their sweat and sodden drops of air mixed together.

It's there now, remnants of it at least, as he sees her smile at one of the other cops in the booth with them, and he imagines more of this invisible mist drifts up when she tucks her hair behind her ear. He's still uncomfortable, the vestiges of his hard on have never fully dissipated from that night, and there has been no moment when he can escape and deal with his problem. It wouldn't have been difficult, just a few seconds spent thinking of the heat and the wet surrounding his fingers and it would be done, but he hadn't had even that granted to him. Why should he have been?

He's daydreaming but still vaguely aware of her movements, when he senses an odd shift in her. Thinking no more of it, he is therefore shocked beyond words as he feels a touch, a motion, ease it's way from his knee up his leg. Connecting his brain with the rest of his body, he realises that she is teasing her foot upwards, having slipped her shoe off. Looking at her, he is disconcerted to see that her attention doesn't even appear to be on him, instead leaning back and clutching a beer bottle, still talking to someone two men down.

Despite seeming to be somewhere else completely, she's there, advancing slowing towards him, the brush of her foot teasingly creeping as she licks her lips and takes another gulp of beer. He's frozen, all blood flooding from his brain and numbing everything but the nerve endings lying on the surface of his skin. They are afire, ablaze, her touch scorching a path so burning that he wonders whether there will be a scar. There should be, he could add it to all those she has created. Invisible, but he knows where each one lies.

And then, watching her, he sees her sigh deeply as the tip of her toe reaches his erection, as if settling in at home after a long day. She flashes him her first glance, and he gulps at the heated, consuming light within them.

As she moves her foot around him, pushing gently, thrillingly, he is oblivious to those around him, focused just on her, her body and her actions, as well as the sensations racing through him.

This is nothing like the car, this is languid, careful, worryingly right. With every breath, every touch, he hardens imperceptibly more until he begins to think that he is going to come with only her foot against her cock, through their clothes, with people all around.

And then, it's gone.

Someone has suddenly pulled all his clothes off and left him naked, and goosebumps rise on his arms. Then he is aware of silence around him, and faces looking. For a second he panics that he has made some noise, revealed how close he is to losing it and what is going on in the hidden depths of under the table.

But he realises that he has simply been asked a question, and he stumbles slightly on his request for it to be repeated, relief almost causing him to blush. He dares another glance at Olivia and there is laughter in her eyes, though she makes no sound or outward sign.

Then, not only is her touch gone but she is, others shifting out of the way as she excuses herself to to the bathroom. People move around him as they go to get more drinks and he has accepted a scotch and another beer before he considers the repercussions of his actions. Thinking through it more though, it's probably good, perhaps the alcohol in his system can calm things down, deaden them slightly as he seems to be going to get no release any time soon.

He sees her as soon as she comes back into view, hyper aware of her presence, and his stare doesn't leave when she stops to talk to another one of the cops at the bar, when she smiles at him. He is trapped by her, captivated, until the second she looks at him and the spell breaks.

When she sits back down, it's next to him, not across from him, and her proximity is excruciating. All the others are back now, Munch the other side of Elliot, Cragen and two of the Queens guys opposite, and they're telling old war stories about life on the streets. He stays quiet. It feels like he hasn't got enough breath in his body to live, let alone to talk.

It isn't until she lays her hand over his that he realises he has been tapping, and her quiet pressure is so reminiscent of that night that it chokes him. The mirror action of calming, and the feel of her pressure against the back of his hand as she guided him to her. Now it's just the table she is pushing him into but that's bad enough.

Her hand drops, vanishes out of view for a second and she moves slightly in her seat. He half expects to feel her hand on his leg, just as he had touched hers, but it doesn't transpire. He can't look at her but he is aware of faint movements beside him.

Then the hand is back on the table, holding her beer bottle, faint droplets of condensation against the glass, and when he looks at her fingers he sees a faint sheen, not of water but of another liquid.

She's just touched herself.

He nearly gasps out loud. The atmosphere makes him feel as though he is high, a surreal combination of her hand, the alcohol, the laughter and come down of the cops and the stories of blood, gore and perversity that they are lending their particular brand of gallows humour to. It's all mixed into an excruciating, heady drug and he is swimming in it. Drowning.

She doesn't move any more, barely looks at him, but there is heat exchanged between them by her thigh against his. Slowly the day fades away, but exhaustion hasn't reached him yet. He's comfortable here, in the more uncomfortable way possible, and both of them keep their blood alcohol topped up, trying to stave off the moment they cannot bear each others presence and have to leave, the illusion of....whatever their partnership is now.....shattering them.

He downs his drink, and she stands up. Leaves him. It's over. But then she puts her hand in her pocket and swears loudly.

"Fuck. I left my keys at the house."

Before he can think through what he is saying, he speaks.

"I'll walk you back. Keep you company."

She shoots him a look, unidentifiable even to him. He thinks it's because even she doesn't know what she wants. When had they ever known that?

"I can look after myself."

He shrugs, and slides out of the booth.

"That's not why I'm coming." There is enquiry across her face but he doesn't elaborate, instead walking towards the exit without checking to see if she is following. He knows she will. She cannot not.

There are stars already in the sky, and they do not speak as they walk, simply take matching steps. They never had to learn to step together, they just did, and it's part of what makes them so right.

No words are spoken, they neither look at each other nor acknowledge the other's presence. He can pick her breathing out of the city noise, and she imagines his heartbeat mirroring hers, increasing with every second. There is fight or flight within them. They should talk, should break whatever dangerous escape they are creating, but they don't. They never will. It's part of what makes them so wrong.

When they reach the precinct, they know that this is simply a continuum of the other night. That they've stepped off a cliff and are free falling. Watching her walk through the door without a glance back at him, Elliot cannot work out if they are falling together or away from each other. The speed, the air rushing past his head, the spinning, twisting drop is dizzying, sickening. And yet, he knows that he doesn't want to land.


	3. Chapter 3

The precinct is dimmed and silent, only a few ghostly cops drifting around the place as they make their way up to the squad room. She scans her desk for a second before disappearing to the locker room, and he doesn't follow for a minute, figuring that she'll come back downstairs.

He doesn't know what is going to happen when she comes back down. All the things he want to do, that have flashed through his find at inopportune moments, still seem impossible despite the lines they have crossed. Then again, it will never be the right time to think about loving, touching, drowning in his partner. Or never be the wrong one.

When ten minutes have gone past and she still hasn't returned, he begins to wonder. After fifteen minutes, he ignores all the voices in his head that tell him to turn round and go home, the voices of conscience and reason and sense. Instead, he follows her.

She's standing in the locker room, making no attempt either to find her keys or to leave. Instead, her hands are pressed up against the cool, hard metal, as is her forehead as she leans in. He cannot see her face, but he hears her breathing, and the mutters under her breath.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

She had gone upstairs not knowing what she was going to do. Opening her locker, she had seen her keys lying innocently on the top shelf, but the thought of going home, of sitting in a darkened apartment, of touching herself with just the memory of him, is excruciating. She wants to do it now, to come, to release the gnawing, nagging ache between her legs that gets worse every time the seam of her jeans rubs against her. But while she knows that it would be no hard task to bring on an orgasm, she also knows that it wouldn't be enough. Not one, not two, not on her own. She's screwed, and she knows it, needing to feel more than her own familiar fingers against herself.

It's only when she hears the door open that she realises she's been talking to herself. She doesn't have to look to know that it is him, she could tell his entrance anywhere. Not by sight, or sound, or smell, just by something she cannot define.

He takes two steps towards her and she turns round, leaning back against the locker and tipping her head backwards. Her eyes are closed, her lips slightly parted and he almost turns round and walks out of the room. It's too intense, too extreme, too painful to watch her and not have her. But, despite his desire to run and hide, he doesn't. He can never leave her.

When she opens her eyes and looks at him, it's over.

Before he can know how or why, he's in front of her, feeling her breath on his neck. He reaches to her, unthinkingly, guided by a force he has no control over, and then his fingers are running over her collar bone, from the centre outwards, tracing their line.

He's so close. Too close. She's reeling in him, in his scent and his heat and the fear he invokes in her. The fear of prior knowledge. Of knowing this is it. The jump into the unknown. Somehow, somewhere, she knew it would always come to this, and yet that is a lie. She hadn't known at all, and that is what made it bearable. Had she been expecting this for so many years, been waiting for this, she'd have lost it by now. Or perhaps she has, and this is insanity at its best.

She moves backwards, trying to take in some air that isn't him, that hasn't been in him, that isn't weighed down by him. But he follows, and nowhere seems far enough away. They've pushed through the door to the locker room, they're in unknown territory now, and his hands are tracing down her arms.

She's reversing, stepping backwards backwards backwards, until she's hit the wall of the shower room without noticing. If anyone asked how they got there, she wouldn't have a clue.

They still haven't really touched, haven't kissed, haven't dared. Their fingertips are simply together, and occasionally one of them will run their fingers up the others forearms. When she feels the cold tiles against her back she shivers involuntarily. Her nails graze gently on his forearms.

He is trapped. Caught in her eyes. Nothing will ever hold him as tight as they do, and he watches them dilate as he skims her skin, the hairs under his fingers standing on end as he brushes over them.

He's come closer and closer, and now she slips her leg in between his, her thigh pressing against his erection. In turn he leans in, bending at the knee ever so slightly and shifting his leg into her, returning the favour. He feels her push down onto him, not grinding, just creating pressure. He almost kids himself that he can feel her heat, her desire, her want.

Now her hands have travelled to his neck, are scratching the base of his neck, tracing his hairline as she watches his face. He rests with one hand against the tiles, the other brushing the sliver of skin he sees in the gap between her jeans and her top, that he has already touched once before, in the car.

He feels lost, a teenage boy fumbling in the dark. Like the sky might be able to fall in on his head, that the wrath of the gods will descend and destroy him. If she doesn't first.

Then it begins to rain.

They've leant against the shower and now it's drenching them, soaking through their clothes to their skin, weighing them down. Neither makes a move though, either to stop the water or to stop their actions. They know they couldn't if they tried.

She undoes the button of his pants and slides the zip down slowly before releasing him. He had been damp before, a combination first of desire and then of water seeping through, but now a torrent of water coats him. Her hand is wet as well, and the sensation is unbearable and perfect.

He's looking at her, and when she takes him in her hand, touches him for the first time, it seems he is crying, streaks of water trailing down his face and dancing between his stubble. She begins to move, and as she does so, he slips his hand down into her pants again. His leg is still between hers and the friction his hand creates between her body and his is harsh, exquisite.

He can feel her heat, the difference in textures between the sheer lightness of the water and the thicker, hotter, slipperiness of her core. His attention is torn between the lust travelling through his body and the feel of her beneath his hand. He presses hard, unable to control himself, pressing up against her pelvic bone in fury, and feels her shudder slightly underneath him.

With that, she tightens her grip on him, and he almost shudders too. He wants more and yet for nothing to change, to fall into her and never surface but he also knows this, this excruciating agony of sensation and frustration and longing will kill him if it doesn't end.

He is vaguely aware that his shoes have filled with water, he's drenched, and then such prosaic thoughts disappear again as, despite his body pressed against her, she slides her back down the wall. He imagines she leaves a trail across his pant leg as she rubs himself across him.

Then her mouth is on his cock and there is no more room for imagination or thought or the feeling of water running down his spine. All his mind can hold is the increased warmth of her mouth and the scrape of her teeth upon him, the friction counteracting the slickness of so much water and liquid on him.

She is soaked, water streaming down her face, and he strokes her cheek as she runs her tongue from the base of his cock to the tip and pauses for a second, tasting the droplets that lie there.

They lose themselves, for what might be hours but is probably only minutes. Her core is throbbing, desperate, but she cannot help but think of her release in the car, and his lack of one. Nevertheless, she cannot help squirming slightly, causing the drenched fabric to rub against her, granting some relief and yet increasing her desire.

He's tensing now, both hands leaning against the wall, overshadowing her, and yet the thought of this being it, of him coming in her mouth, of them doing something that lovers do, is terrifying. That, and he wants to see her eyes, to gaze at her face to face when he comes.

He takes one hand from the wall and runs his hand down through her drenched hair, across her cheek to under her chin. Lifting her head slightly, she looks up at him before squinting and blinking at the water hitting her. Without speaking, he draws her up in front of him, leaning back into her and returning his hand to her pants.

She hadn't expected his movement, his stopping her actions, but when he touches her again her confusion vanishes in a haze of aching want. Before she can gasp, can get a full, humid breath into her lungs, his fingers are in her and she's reached down between them to inflict the same torment on him, running her hand smoothly up and down him and swiping the tip with her thumb.

Their stomachs are almost touching, one of her hands gripping the back of his neck as he presses ever closer, ever harder. Her chest is hard against and he can feel her heat through their soaking clothes, feel her heart beating, almost as clear as if they were naked. As he continues his touch, he's skirting round her clit, moving his fingers but only brushing gently with his thumb, and she digs her nails into his skin, desperate to urge him onwards. She wants to sob, to beat him, to scream his name, but they stay silent, drops of water running across their lips and falling into oblivion.

As she comes near to her release, her muscles tense and her breath speeds up, and he can feel her begin to shake beneath him. Not only is she starting to clench around his fingers but her hand has sped up on his cock, and he knows that it isn't long before he will come. As he feels himself tighten, his muscles spasm, he presses in onto her clit with his thumb.

When he comes in her hand, she doesn't realise for a second, so swept away is she by her orgasm. His thumb has pushed against her, and the intensity of that pressure after such gentle, fluttering strokes causes shudders throughout her body as it screams. She can feel a low, humming moan coming from her, fading into silence but for the sound of water pouring across them, and in that noise she can also make out his panting next to her ear.

As she comes down, finds her sense and her mind again, she looks down at her hand, still on his cock. She has his come on her fingers, and before it is washed away by the water, she lifts her hand and traces his lips slowly, going from corner to corner. He does the same, coating her with herself, adding a sheen to her mouth as she looks at him.

And then they kiss. Then and only then, after both coming, after touching each other in the most private of ways, after being soaked to the skin and feeling the whole of their bodies pressed to each other. They kiss, and they taste each other on their mouths as it mixes with saliva and water and sweat, and they drown.

Their hands run across each others bodies, through the clothes, but they don't need to touch to know. After so long, their body shapes, where their muscles lie, where they curve, where their scars have changed them, are so known to them that feeling it is simply an affirmation of that knowledge, not a learning.

The shower is lukewarm now, a chill settling onto them through their clothes, and yet they should be steaming as cold water touches heated bodies. They're kissing with eleven years of grief and rage and helplessness controlling them, and it feels like a new beginning, an eternity starting.

They both shiver involuntarily at the same time, and the kiss slows, and stops. They lean against each other, forehead to forehead, breath mixing as soon as it leaves their mouths. They're both panting slightly, tremors beginning to take over their bodies uncontrollably as cold water hits them. They're in sync in every shudder they make.

Olivia turns off the shower.

There is water everywhere, dripping off the tips of her hair, resting on her eyelashes as she looks at him. She blinks, breaks their eye contact, and it falls to the ground, flowing away with the rest of the water. He wants to catch it with his tongue, hold it, but it's over.

Their fingers intertwine with one another as they step from the shower, water following them as they step across the floor, leaving a trail behind them as they leave.

And then they let go.


End file.
